


Skinsuit

by Draikinator



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Death, Depersonalization, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 02:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14510655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: You trace the narrative of the scar cratering your chest with your fingertips by the flickering light of the campfire. Even in the darkness, under the bloodmoon red overlay of the flames sickening illumination you can see its colours are incredible, white-pink valleys that furrow through your flesh and stubbornly refuse to press the walls of their canyons back together beside wine-red welts that bloom from your flesh and spiral in on themselves, all exploding forth from over your heart, somehow poetic in its placement. No one could survive a wound that left such a scar.No one.





	Skinsuit

You trace the narrative of the scar cratering your chest with your fingertips by the flickering light of the campfire. Even in the darkness, under the bloodmoon red overlay of the flames sickening illumination you can see its colours are incredible, white-pink valleys that furrow through your flesh and stubbornly refuse to press the walls of their canyons back together beside wine-red welts that bloom from your flesh and spiral in on themselves, all exploding forth from over your heart, somehow poetic in its placement. No one could survive a wound that left such a scar.

No one.

You pick up a stick and poke at the fire, adjusting a log over white-orange embers that flickered and blinked like ghosts. At least, your ghosts. The way the orange heat of the burning coals gleamed along their frothy white surfaces reminds you of the cyan that flickers around Mipha when you see her.

You take another bite of roasted bass. Cooked with imprecision and the skills of a creature you suspect lacks any demonstrable sentience at all, it disgusts you, but it's already cooked and its chefs certainly aren't going to eat it, and you hate to waste food. The stench of their corpses idly by the fire is starting to bother you, but not enough yet you feel like abandoning the warmth it offers. You’re so tired, but you’ll be awake awhile yet. There's nowhere safe to sleep out here, and you aren't ready to teleport to a stable just yet. You aren't done here.

You cast your eyes through the darkness and across the snowscape. The mountains lolls gently here, as if it's just a hill and not this behemoth of the landscape that threatens to swallow you like a wolf swallows a rabbit.

Well. A wolf wouldn't swallow a rabbit. They would tear it to pieces, first, which is appropriately grisly for your emotions and your musings, but seems discordant with the metaphor you were imagining.

You poke the fire again.

One of the photos on your Sheikah slate is from somewhere in these mountains. You might not remember being here, but the mountains remember themselves, and they don't seem like they've changed in a century. Probably many centuries. Probably never will. Why should they? You didn't.

You bite the fish again. Disgusting.

You don't want to find that memory. Every time you remember something, someone, your tenuous grasp on your sense of self slips further out of your grasp, like a child grabbing at smoke with their hands. Every time voices and faces from a past you weren't there for filter through the darkness before you awoke in water you feel less certain you know who you are. It seems almost disgustingly unfair.

The man you are in your memories seems nothing like you. He’s dedicated, somber, a man who earned his position. You’re listless, easily amused, a man who follows whims where they take him in pursuit of… anything. You’re going to do something about the Calamity, eventually… but before you do that, you need to find a way to free the Divine Beasts, to find the sword that seals the darkness, to become strong enough to challenge it. As far as you can tell, the best way to achieve those goals is to… wander. Wander until you find a shrine and leave with a spirit orb, wander until you find a divine beast, wander until you find that damn sword…

In the memories you always have somewhere you're supposed to be.

That man was not like you. The people who remember him greet you because you wear his face and his scars, but they don't know you. They grant you kindness he earned, the Zoras in their domain spinning tales of fantastic romance plots he was in, how he was friend and mentor and lover and you know. You know.

You are none of those things to them.

You don’t know those people. You never knew them. Whoever used to live in this skinsuit did.

You trace the rippling eruption of scars on your chest again. No one could survive something like that. No one.

You have the sneaking suspicion he didn't. 


End file.
